Daylight
by i love alex
Summary: "You found me, huh?"


A/N: Have to apologize massively for such a long break in writing and for the rustiness in this fic, it's certainly been awhile. Based right after 3x09 with a little give and take in plot and characterisation; Elena doesn't really 'let him go' and rather than getting mad, Stefan rather, drinks.

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><p>She finds him in a small bar off a highway she's never driven down before in her life but thinks, at first glance, that it had to have been built for people wanting to be free without getting lost; it was <em>endless<em>. There's nothing but road and gravel, the harsh sun beating down, for miles. Her thighs are sticking together and she wishes she had put her hair up. It sticks uncomfortably to her neck.

It took less than an hour to find him; she got the address out of Damon, who got it out of Katherine. Something about doing it for his own good and not needing any more problems with Klaus on their ass. Elena is half expecting the location to be a mislead, a dud because she knows that Katherine is more likely to stick on Stefan's side than she is on anyone else's. It wouldn't be a stretch that she was protecting him, hiding his location but it also wouldn't be a stretch, that she'd tell them to truth.

Elena has no idea what she is going to do when she does see him; the night before she hadn't slept and that morning she had woken up wanting to do nothing but drive, to maybe find him. Yell at him. Scream a little. She doesn't remember being this angry with anyone, ever. It's stupid, she knows. To go hunting for him, searching especially when he obviously didn't want to found but she's stopped questioning all the ways he'll lead her to and fro, back and forth, all because his heart somehow belonged to hers and hers always somehow belonged to him.

The bar is called Noah's Joint and it makes her snort out loud, yanking out her keys and throwing them onto the front passengers seat once she's pulled into the parking lot. Game plan, she hears herself say. She has none. She doesn't want one. She just wants to see him, she thinks. See him for herself, free of compulsion, free of his brother. Free of her.

Elena closes her eyes.

It's hot and she needs a drink.

The bar door takes a good push to open and she stands there for a second at the entrance when she finally manages to squeeze her way in, looking so out of place it would've made her laugh. But she spots him on the other side of the bar, with his head hanging low and suddenly nothing about this is even remotely funny. He's in black jeans and a black shirt, cradling a scotch glass; his favorite drink. She had known what his favorite drink was before she had known what his birthday was. Scotch on the rocks, _always_.

A man by a jukebox she hadn't spotted when she had come in, wolf whistles her and she regrets wearing the pair of cut off denim shorts that made her legs look even longer than they already were. She watches Stefan's back, as it jolts almost, when he realizes seconds after the man has made the noise, that she's there.

Maybe it was the way she was breathing, the way she smelled. Maybe he could just tell whenever she walked into a room he'd already been sitting in.

She ignores the man who whistles again (Stefan grips so hard to his glass, his fingers have gone white) and walks to the bar. It's long with stools scattered beneath it, there are only a couple people sitting on them and Stefan's one of the few at the very end.

He laughs, it breaks out of his mouth before she can sit down.

"Found me, huh?"

He's not drunk yet but he's getting there, she can tell, just by his voice. The bar tender who looked like he couldn't care less whether you had ID or not, silently shrugs at Elena in a question of what she wanted.

"Shot of tequila, no salt."

Elena feels the need to be annoyed by him speaking for her but merely takes a seat; if she's allowed to remember his drink, she figures he's allowed to remember hers.

The bar tender nods before turning to the other side of the counter, leaving their side of the bar. A new song starts to play, a CCR one that Elena remembers her dad playing when she was younger. For some reason, it makes her throat begin to ache. She had sworn to herself that she wouldn't cry. _Sworn_.

"Wasn't hard, I followed the person who left the trail of unwanted goods."

She can tell he fakes the smirk he gives her, watches the way he bites his tongue as he cocks his head.

"Well played."

The bar tender places the shot glass in front of her and she downs in, smacking it onto the bar as the liquid burns along her throat, hiding her hands before Stefan could see that they were shaking.

"How does it feel to be human again?" She asks, feeling the buzz immediately. She shouldn't drink, this would get far messier than it already was if she was intoxicated but it gives her the boost she needs and she waves at the bar tender to give her another. Stefan raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything.

He takes a moment, taking a sip of his own drink before looking back down at it, his head still low like he couldn't keep it upright. Elena wonders when the last time he slept was.

"I don't know, Elena, you tell me."

This conversation is going nowhere and she hates it more than she should; she didn't come her to talk to him and she thinks he knows that, fighting hard to do nothing but ignore her and drink. He's watching her hands though, from the corner of his eye and she's suddenly self-conscious, not only of them but also of her entire body. The body that he's got memorized, the body he knew by heart from the lines on her palms to the freckles on her feet. From the tips of her toes to the scar on the back of her neck she got from ice skating when she was only 6.

The song changes again and it makes her want to dance even though it's a slow one. Stefan turns his head to smirk at her and it's strange and distant but not cold like before and she gets it now, she sees it; how hard he's still trying to fake that he's not there but that he's so in there it's impossible for it not to seep right out.

"What?" She finds herself saying when he's still staring at her and she's flicking her eyes between his own and his lips.

"Dance with me?" He says softly and peels himself off the bar stool, lazily hanging over the counter to get himself centred; he has her hand from her lap when she tells him no.

He tugs her along and she thinks and wonders if he sees the irony of this; of him dragging her onto a dance floor when so long ago, it was her dragging him.

"Come on, humour me." He says like he's read her mind and slips his arm around her waist like he doesn't know how much he's breaking her heart.

She leans in, her body getting used to him quicker than her brain was and as they sway to some Ray LaMontagne song, she feels it; her arm scooped around his shoulder, her eyes peeking at him as he moved them, ducking his head so that his ear was against her cheek, how much it was breaking his heart too.

It feels like hours but it's minutes, she knows, of them swaying there, just the two of them along the space designated for a stage; this bar's practically empty though and she thinks they'd be dancing in the middle of it even if there wasn't a stage.

The song finishes but he doesn't let her go and she's scared, for the first time since stepping into this bar. Not of him but of his heart and his mind, what he's been through. She's scared of how overwhelmed he'll be and what that'll make him. She thinks of what he had told her, months ago, about what it meant to be a vampire. Of heightened emotions. He's brilliant, terrifying and lovely. He's all of it, he's him. He's Stefan but he's also not.

"I did it for Damon." He says finally, against her shoulder where she can't see and because he's finally talking, she lets him stay there and keeps them swaying as the jukebox starts playing what sounds like an even sadder song.

"What?" She finds herself whispering and grips to the material of his shirt to keep her hands from trembling.

"He would've died along with Klaus, I couldn't…."

His voice breaks off and she grips to him, just a little tighter because she knows, even though she really doesn't. It comes out of her mouth quietly, against his shoulder.

"Do you though?" He asks and she has to pull back, has to see his face. He must need too as well, or need something else entirely because he's dropping his hands like he can't keep touching her and won't look directly at anything. At anyone.

"I let you go." She tells him weakly and tries to reach for him but he moves, turning his back to her.

"Katherine told me."

Elena suddenly feels the floor beneath her, much weaker; less solid. More likely to let her fall through it.

"Oh." She says and it's soft and weak. It's nothing but a whisper and he can't look at her.

"She told me that you kissed Damon, she told me everything."

She wants to ask him what everything meant when he starts for the bars doorway and it takes her half a second to even breath let alone move her feet to follow him; he's about halfway across the parking lot when she burst through the doors. The sun's going down and the sky is covered in pink and blue, soft tones that seem to seep together without a line that told you where or why.

"_Stefan_!" She yells from the steps and he stops walking, spins around, his face-hardened and controlled. His emotions in check even though there are tears in his eyes.

He looks devastated and it devastates her.

"How does this work Elena? You fall out of love with me right? You fall out of love with me because I was suddenly this other person, this stranger who said all the wrongs things, who pissed you off, who had no humanity, who didn't give a shit about anybody or anything. He fed and drank blood and murdered people, innocent people. So you fell out of love with me, not because you wanted to but because you had to and you ended up falling in love with him…with _him_ and I don't blame you, I don't Elena, I think out of anybody I'd want you to fall in love with instead of him, it'd be him."

"Stop." She barely gets out, her feet are shaking and her fists are shaking, her entire body is just shaking and they're feet away; he doesn't want to do anything but hug her, touch her but she thinks surely, they'd crumple. They'd both fall to the floor, by touching each other right now.

"I never stopped." She says instead and it's suddenly worse, it's suddenly too much and he's turning away from her, tears running over his cheeks as he brings his hands up to his face to mask it, to mask something because he's so bare in front of her and he needs to mask something, anything. But masking anything in front of her has always been something he's never been able to do. Something he's never wanted to do, never.

Elena closes the distance between them, puts her hand to his back that is trembling just as much as her entire body and just stands there, holding him the only way he's letting her.

The night air comes and it's soon dark enough to make out the stars but still light enough for the trees, for the mountains to still be visible against the blue of the sky and it's timeless anyway, standing there with him. She'd stand there forever.

He calms eventually, his back stilling and she finds that she is too, maybe by having her hand on his back or maybe because they weren't looking at one another and it gave her a chance to breathe, to think, to take a beat. She had wanted to yell and scream, pound at his chest until he hurt as much as he had hurt her but she knows it wasn't fair, that none of this was.

"What are we going to do now?" He says and it's the first they've spoken in at a least an hour, it makes her jump but only a little and he turns to meet her, leaning into her body like he's not even thinking about the way their feet are suddenly touching.

Elena looks up at him and tries to think of the answer he'll want to hear. The answer that'll make sense, maybe make this a little easier. A little better. But she finds instead, herself wanting to tell him something else entirely. Something she's been wanting to tell him for weeks now, something she had told him in the middle of a night like this one, when they were miles and miles apart. Something that'll make this not easier and simpler but okay. Right and okay.

"I love you."

His face shadows and changes. For a second he looks terrified but he leans his head against the tip of hers in a slow, gentle, careful way. Like he's not sure how to really move around her now.

"Take me home." He whispers and her heart pounds and she wants to cry but knows it'd make this harder; she takes his hand instead and leads him to her car and he walks over to the passenger side and slips in as she's opening her door, sliding in after him.

She's about to push her keys into the ignition when she notices that he's just sitting there, staring out through the front window, his hands on his lap. Elena opens her mouth to say something when he turns his head, looking more sad and lonely than she's ever seen him look. Her throat aches.

"I'm suffocating." He tells her and she feels the breath get knocked out of her, like she's been punched in the stomach.

He looks away from her, suddenly moving all at once, his hands and his eyes. He unlocks his door and jumps out, walking a couple feet away from the car. She's not expecting anything right now; she thinks one of them is bound to break, should be allowed to.

"Stefan." She starts as she comes out of the car, helplessly walking a few steps as he heaves a little, stuffing his hands into his hair. It'll be like this for a while, for a long time, she knows; the way he'll beat himself up and torture himself for the things he had done but had no control over. His guilt will seep at him, coming out in ways that'll make him hit things he doesn't mean to hit; himself, the wall, his heart. Her.

"I can't go back to a life without you, I can't." He says with his back towards her and she's moving for him before he's finished speaking, turning him around and grabbing first his hand and then his face, kissing him roughly.

He's caught off guard but only for a second before he's kissing her back, grabbing for her and making them both stumble a couple steps as he moves his hand for her face and then down her body, trying to reach and grab at her closer anyway that he can; she feels as he lifts her up against his waist and she leans back, holding his face in both of her hands.

"You think I could go back to a life without you? You think I could ever stop wanting you the way I do, you think I could ever stop feeling so much for you sometimes I think it'll destroy me? You think I'll ever stop being so in love with you?" She says breathlessly, flicking her eyes between his and he kisses against her cheek, against her ear, the underside of her jaw before he's whispering that that he's so in love with her too.

He walks them back towards the car, his back hitting the passenger door and he fixes her a little better on his waist, her feet wound around him in a knot; he breaks away, panting and licking against her collar bone as Elena tips her head back and moans into the night sky; they were alone, about to make love to nobody watching them but the moon and the stars and she wants this more than anything she's wanted in her life, she wants him.

"Elena." He says and he's kissing against the valley of her breasts, his free hand tugging at the material of her shirt.

"The car…" She manages breathlessly and tries to manoeuvre her hand between their bodies to open the door. He moves them back and opens it, still carrying her as he sits back onto the seat, pulling her onto his lap; it was going to be difficult and cramp, her head hits the roof of the ceiling but he's kissing her again and her hands are at his belt, struggling to get it open.

When her shorts are at her ankles, her underwear yanked aside and he's sinking into her, using one leg against her ass to gain leverage, it makes them both gasp, clutch at one closer. It's slow and quiet and they move in a lazy way; she buries her head against his neck, gripping to his waist and biting down when he's going deeper. He reaches for her face to kiss her, their faces so close she's not really sure for a moment, where one begins and the other ends. They both come in a matter of seconds of one another even though it was quick and pretty slow; but it was ignited, full of something else she knows he can feel too, like every nerve ending of her body was connected to him.

"Shit." He says when their both panting, a mess and unravelled, the pair of them just sitting in her car. He's still inside her and it's too hot for them not to move, her legs are sticking uncomfortable to the car seat and he helps her with her underwear and then her shorts before he fixes himself, doing up his belt as she lifts away from him, coming back to sit against him when he's done.

It wasn't the romantic reunion she had thought of, maybe hoped for; it was messy and quick but sitting there, hearing the rise and fall of his heart through his chest, she thinks it was better this way. He tucks some hair back behind her ears without saying anything, without looking at her and sitting there, as they were, feeling so isolated and alone she really thinks then that she could live with him and only him for the rest of her life. For forever.

She thinks about telling him but he's kissing her temple and saying that they should drive back now if they were going to get home before sunrise but as he moves and jumps out, going around to the driver's side, she thinks she'll tell him tomorrow. The next day. They had a lot of them now, to make up for, to make up with.

He holds her hand as he drives with the other and he hasn't said anything but she thinks it's fine, that the edge he's struggling to stay on is balanced more with her; it's balanced more between them. It'll be hard and painful, this next part. The part she's not sure of; the part where he maybe gets better but also maybe gets worse but she's ready, she is.

She tells herself she'll yell at him tomorrow.

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><p>AN: I'm hoping to get another one up tomorrow? I leave for a big trip Saturday and I'm not sure how much writing I'll get done while I'm away but fingers crossed!


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